Waterbury’s Independents won’t give up

Party to regroup after losses at polls

BY MICHAEL PUFFER REPUBLICAN-AMERICANIndependent Lawrence V. De Pillo

WATERBURY – The Independent Party suffered a thorough trouncing at the polls Tuesday, but party leaders vow to fight on.

Democrats have dominated every election since the 2001 arrest of Republican Mayor Philip Giordano on charges related to sexual abuse of children. The Independent Party formed two years later, sweeping aside Republicans to claim the mantle as the city’s second party.

Since then, it’s been a fight for second place. Republicans have been winning that fight convincingly for the four municipal election cycles stretching back to 2011.

“Although it has been the mission of the Republicans to destroy the Independent Party every two years, they fail,” Independent Party Chairman Lawrence V. De Pillo said Friday. “If they felt that two years ago they destroyed us, or this year they destroyed the Independent Party, then they failed miserably.”

De Pillo lost his bid for election to the 15-member Board of Aldermen, the city’s legislative branch. It’s a position he held twice in the past.

The party ran a full slate of candidates for city sheriff, city clerk, as well as the boards of Aldermen and Education. All 15 of its candidates came in dead last in their respective races, that is if one doesn’t count the suspended write-in aldermanic campaign of Jimmie Griffin. He didn’t garner a single vote.

“We’ve talked since the election,” De Pillo said. “And we understand we didn’t achieve anywhere near the number of votes we thought we would achieve. We were not surprised by the (low) turnout. I will tell you we were surprised at the results.”

This election represented the Independent Party’s chance to regain some of its former power. Due to a change to a four-year term, there was no mayoral contest and no easy coattail effect. It was a more candidate-to-candidate battle than ever. Independents thought they could make up big imbalances in manpower, registered voters and campaign dollars with an extended door-knocking campaign. The party had managed to bring in a couple of well-known community activists as candidates.

De Pillo says he doesn’t know what went wrong. He said he’ll meet with his candidates and try to refine their strategy. Meanwhile, the Independents will continue to challenge authority and demand accountability through grassroots activism, De Pillo said.

The party has shown an ability to have an impact even when largely out of power. De Pillo was the lone Independent Party alderman in 2014, when he led a campaign that scuttled a $49.6 million school construction project in the East End.

The project was unpopular with many of its neighbors. Even so, city officials approved funding.

De Pillo led a signature campaign that would have required further approval from voters at referendum. Mayor Neil M. O’Leary pulled the project before it came to to referendum. It has not re-emerged.

“We still make a difference,” said party elder Cicero B. Booker Jr., who lost his own aldermanic bid. “We make a bigger difference seated in office, but we make an impact even out of office, because we know how the system works on the inside.”

Booker served four terms on the Board of Aldermen, from 2003 to 2011. He was board minority leader for three terms.

Erika Cooper was one of the brightest prospects among the Independent candidates this year. She has a long history of community service and offered standout performances at two pre-election candidate forums. But she still came in fifth among six candidates running for three seats in Aldermanic District 2.

“I was really shocked that none of the Independent Party won,” Cooper said. “I thought we had the stronger team. I was kind of hurt, because talking to the people in the community, it seemed like they wanted a change.”

Still, Cooper says she’s not done with politics, and certainly not her active efforts to improve education and enrichment opportunities for inner-city youth.

Cooper, a registered Democrat, was endorsed on the Independent Party slate. Asked if she would continue to be politically active with the Independent Party, Cooper paused.